Despite the increasing electrification of railway transportation, the proportion of what is known as diesel traction is considerable. The distance covered by Deutsche Bahn AG diesel railcars and diesel locomotives alone is around 90 million kilometres per year.

Diesel-operated rail vehicles also travel in cities (and therefore in increasing numbers of more green zones), while the nearly 20,000 shunting engines in the centrally located logistic centres in particular create considerable exhaust gas emissions due to their engines that are just as old as they are powerful.

Retrofitting systems to reduce exhaust gases is very technically complicated for diesel-operated railway vehicles: In diesel railcars, the prevalent underfloor design that is used to install the engines in the underbody in very small spaces makes it difficult to install exhaust gas aftertreatment systems.

In diesel locomotives and shunting engines, there is usually enough installation space, but the axle and wheel loads represent a significant problem: For example, a diesel soot particulate filter system for a standard 140 tonne shunting engine weighs around 1.4 tonnes. This may only be 1% of the overall weight, but in view of the currently applicable safety standards for rail transport, this is already 1% too much.

The durability and energy efficiency of these rail vehicles is just as outstanding as the soot and nitrogen oxide emissions are high. For this reason, technical requirements for emission-reducing systems are particularly high in this transport and vehicle sector.

We at Exomission are in a position to offer new solutions to the problems in this field.